Category Archives: Patterns for jersey fabrics

Winter dressmaking projects can often be long and complicated, so here’s the antidote – the Parkwood Cowl.

Takes just 1m of fabric and can be made all in one fabric, reversible or with contrast panels.

There’s just one pattern piece with all the variations marked on and it sews up super quick with only 4 pieces, making it great for beginners and an ideal project for your homemade Christmas gift sewing!

and a MIY Collection Kit containing a printed Parkwood pattern, specially selected beautiful quality bouclé wool mix fabric in a choice of burgundy, grey or teal and matching colour thread. Even better, the kit will be delivered to your door beautifully packaged in a sturdy gift box, all for just £55. Perfect if you want to get sewing straight away without worrying about fabric shopping, or the ideal gift for a beginner stitcher.

My straight neck vest and dress pattern is now the Walkley Vest Dress.

I’ve just updated the PDF version of the pattern and as well as the new name it uses my new sizing system based on body measurements and a full scale untiled version of the pattern if you prefer to print patterns at a copy shop rather than on A4 sheets to join together at home.

If you prefer a paper pattern, it’s still available here and will be updated soon with the new name and size labelling.

This pattern is a great summer project – the vest and dress are both really easy to wear – a loose-ish fit, but with some shaping at the waist so it’s not a completely boxy shape. It’s easy to add custom seams to your pattern (fully explained in the instructions) so you can mix and match fabrics and use up some of that stash!!

Lots of my beginner students have happily used this pattern and if you’ve done a bit of sewing before, get creative with those seams and make yourself a completely unique version. I love seeing what people make with my patterns so don’t forget to tag your makes #miywalkley or email me your pictures.

There are lots more MIY Collection patterns in the pipelines, so keep room on your sewing to-do list.

In the meantime, get your Walkley Vest Dress as a pdf or print pattern now and get sewing!

What’s in a Name?

For some time I’ve wrestled with whether or not to “name” my patterns. It seems to be a convention amongst indie pattern designers to give each pattern a name (as opposed to the style number that big brand patterns use). Now, I can see the advantages of naming your patterns: they’re much easier to remember and search for online, easier to # on social media enabling sewists from around the world to look at each other’s versions of the same pattern, it makes the pattern and brand feel more personal and it definitely can enhance the touchy feely side of a pattern brand by adding another personal narrative to the story of the brand. (If in fact there is any narrative to the names and they’re not just random.)

So why haven’t I?! Well for one, I hate to be seen to be jumping on any kind of bandwagon and like to think that everything I do is considered and done that way for a reason. For example, my patterns aren’t printed on thin/tissue paper, the instruction book is A4 size and the whole thing is packaged in an A4 sized paper bag into which you can keep your project! I’ve been criticised by some retailers wanting to stock the patterns over the size of the packaging, but I like it, my lovely makers seem to like it and it makes MIY Collection distinctive, so I have no intentions of changing it just to be like everyone else. I’m also a fan of keeping things simple and the “form follows function” approach to design.

The consensus from the super lovely positive community on there was that people like a name and it works.

So, I’ve come up with an authentic naming system that I hope will add some sort of narrative to what I do and that some of you lovely people may even find interesting/intriguing. No, I won’t be naming them after friends, or film stars, or French girls’ names, I’m going back to my roots and I’m naming them after areas of my home county (Yorkshire) and to start with, more specifically after Sheffield wards and districts. Har har see what I did there – Wendy Ward, Sheffield wards?! (For non-UK readers wards are administrative divisions of a city or borough represented by councillors in local politics.)

So, in honour of the steel city that made me who I am and that still has my heart wherever I may be, my first named pattern will be The Brightside Shrug pdf pattern #miybrightside and here it is! If you fancy whipping up one for yourself (I once had a MIY Workshop student make one from scratch, including cutting out in a 2 hour class!), you can get yours here.

I’ll gradually be going through all my existing patterns and giving them names and all of my future patterns will also have names. Rest assured I have a long list at various stages of development, here’s a snippet of it that I recently posted on the MIY Collection Facebook page:

Size Matters

The second improvement I’m making with the launch of this pattern is in my approach to size labelling. Regular readers will know I like a good rant about sizing (here’s a previous rant).

For a long time I’ve been thinking about an alternative size labelling system to the current confusing and disingenuous dress sizing system that we’ve all been brainwashed by.

In my book I made a start by using a numbering system, 1, 2, 3, but have since thought that this is probably how the current system started and after all it’s still just a label which actually tells you nothing about the actual body measurements of that particular “size” garment or pattern.

So, I’ve decided to go for a system similar to men’s sizing and refer to actual body measurements, for tops the size will relate to the actual bust size that the garment is designed to fit (including any ease), for skirts and trousers the size will relate to the hip measurement and dresses will use both bust and hip.

I am a bit of a control freak and to an extent, if you make your own clothes I think you should be too. Know the dimensions of your body and love that information, it’s the secret to making beautiful well-fitting clothes that you’ll love to wear, don’t treat your measurements as something to avoid, deny, keep secret or be embarrassed about. In the spirit of leading by example, here for all the world (who is bothered) to see are my measurements:

1 Bust: 97cm / 38″

2 Waist: 79cm / 31″

3 Hips: 103cm / 40.5″

Height: 5ft 8ins / 173cm

Foot size: 7 / 41

This means that when I’m shopping for ready-to-wear clothes I can fit anything from a size 12 to a 16. Confusing and a bit dispiriting huh? I’m fairly happy with my shape and I know that I’m healthy and armed with these measurements I also know how to make myself fabulous clothes that I look and feel great in.

I hope you’ll enjoy my new and improved MIY Collection sewing patterns. I’d love to hear what you think of the changes, leave a comment!

My MIY Collection Fold Over Skirt pattern has been picked to be featured in this month’s Sewing World magazine “Pattern Showcase” feature:

I love this pattern – it’s so quick and easy and the skirt is super comfy. The a-line and asymmetric versions are both included in the pattern. A perfect sew for your summer holiday wardrobe……. Here’s MIY Workshop student Tam in the one she cut out and finished (apart from hemming) in class this week!